CLIVE'S DELIGHT

There was no hiding Clive Allen's delight after our reserve team secured victory against Portsmouth on Tuesday night.

There was no hiding Clive Allen's delight after our reserve team secured victory against Portsmouth on Tuesday night.

The performance - particularly in a one-sided second half - brought a smile to the development coach's face as goals from Troy Archibald-Henville, Jacques Maghoma and Jake Livermore turned a 1-0 half-time deficit into a 3-1 victory at Leyton Orient FC.

The circumstances of the win were just as impressive though as our young team took on a Pompey side packed with league experience including the likes of Lauren, Djimi Traore, David Nugent and Matt Taylor.

Clive reflected: "A lot of Portsmouth's players had Premier League experience and have been involved in their squad this season so you could understand a little apprehension on our part.

"That's why I always enjoy these encounters. They stretch the younger lads, tend to bring the best out of them and that's what happened. A number of them had to rise to the occasion and they did exactly that.

"Coming in at half-time we didn't quite have the belief that we could go out and play in the manner we're capable of and go on and win the game.

"I said to them that we had created chances in the first half and the only disappointment was that the shots weren't on target and we hadn't tested the keeper.

"We had belief in the second half, we had a real purpose about the way we played and attacked them and just grew in confidence. You could see that from the first minute of the second half.

"The goals were well crafted, we had a lot of other opportunities from good play and overall, it's probably our best performance of the season so far.

"The pleasing thing is that you talk about performances and we've had a couple where we haven't got what we've deserved - this time we fully deserved the result we got and full credit to the lads, I was really, really pleased with the second half performance in-particular."